Sony Corporation

Kikue Ishikawa

Kazuya Yonemoto

Tomoyuki Suzuki

Masaharu Hamasaki

Yoshiaki Kagawa

A solid state imager device having an electronic shutter function suitable for use in a video camera or an electronic still camera to suppress brightness differences on TV screens between open and closed periods of the shutter having a semiconductor substrate of a first conductivity type, a region of second conductivity type formed on the semiconductivity substrate of the first conductivity type and a signal charge accumulating region formed on the surface side of the second conductivity type region wherein, a predetermined voltage is applied to the semiconductor substrate of the first conductivity type and the signal charges accumulated in the signal charge accumulating region are discharged to the semiconductor substrate of the first conductivity type, whereby, the exposure time of the solid state imager device can be controlled so that when this imager device is used, for example, in a video camera, the video camera does not have to be provided with a mechanical shutter.

Electronic shutter for a CCD image sensor

A solid state image pick-up device includes means for cancelling a difference in impedance between photo-sensing areas in a photo-sensitive array. The impedance difference cancelling means cancels or makes the difference of impedance at each photo-sensing area ignorable to unify the charge handling in respective photo-sensing areas. In practice, the impedance difference cancelling means provides a resistance high enough to make the impedance difference between respective photo-sensing areas ignorable.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Kikue Ishikawa